Nick_A wrote:What I find unfortunate is that no one here seems to be able to provide even an intellectual explanation for the process beginning with the immaculate conception and concluding with the virgin birth. ...

These are all conceptual ideas that can only arise where there is the sense of separate self...as conceived...in this conception...totally illusory, the Self is beyond all human ideas about it....and all human ideas arise in that Empty unborn ONE

However what I mean to explain is that myths of all sorts, including the influential Virgin Birth myths, function as explanations where common sense and even science must fail.

Peoples change: myths become redundant. Science has overtaken virgin birth myths but these myths may still be useful as allegories.

Allegory Definition
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story, with a purpose of teaching or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to teach some kind of a moral lesson.

'Myth'. I use the word 'myth' in the following sense:an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts:

'Myth'. I use the word 'myth' in the following sense:an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts:

Joseph Campbell did a series on Mythology also several books. He indicated that certain elements of the Myth had a usual meaning in most cultures. For example he stated that water usually meant that the hero of the Myth was unconscious or in a dream like state. There are others but I haven't taken the time to find out what they all are.

However what I mean to explain is that myths of all sorts, including the influential Virgin Birth myths, function as explanations where common sense and even science must fail.

Peoples change: myths become redundant. Science has overtaken virgin birth myths but these myths may still be useful as allegories.

Allegory Definition
Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story, with a purpose of teaching or explaining an idea or a principle. The objective of its use is to teach some kind of a moral lesson.

'Myth'. I use the word 'myth' in the following sense:an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts:

I have noticed that Jesus is reported to have taught by using parables. I know there are slight differences but I think that parables, fables, and myths are very similar in their use and structure. I have extended this similarity to the OT with the possibility that the OT was mostly a collection of stories that were not meant to be taken literally or as fact, this idea could also be applied to parts of the NT.

However what I mean to explain is that myths of all sorts, including the influential Virgin Birth myths, function as explanations where common sense and even science must fail.

The virgin birth could be considered a miracle. Can there be a logical explanation for a miracle? If there is, there is also a logical explanation for the virgin birth secularism and its reliance on duality cannot measure.

If the entire universe is the literal mind of a Being who possesses absolute dominion and control over every micro and macro aspect of the fabric of its reality...

...then mentally extracting a sperm from Joseph and then mentally implanting into one of Mary’s eggs would be a breeze.

Thus a virgin conception and birth is achieved minus all of the messy and “un-immaculate” processes.

Now I’m not suggesting that that is what literally took place, I am merely offering up an explanation of how it could be possible.
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I absolutely love this reply.

Thank you Dam.

It was offered up to Nick_A as a plausible response to his accusation that there is no one here capable of providing an explanation for a process that begins with an immaculate conception and then concludes with a virgin birth.

However, because it does not resonate with his own personal take on reality (even though it makes perfect sense from a “Berkeleyanish” point of view), it just isn’t intellectually satisfying to him.

Therefore, it can only be concluded that no matter what anyone says to him, he will still insist that no one here is capable of providing a logical explanation for the issue he brought up.
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It seems that Nick cannot contemplate the nature of myth as a poetic allegory about humans living in the world.

Speaking of myth, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting my usual fare into the thread (especially in my conversation with Dubious).

However, the fact of the matter is, my usual fare contains the ultimate representation of an “immaculate conception,” for I am speaking of a Being (God) who is capable of immaculately conceiving her own offspring (us) within herself via her own mental processes.

Now I know that this isn't anything that you personally subscribe to, however, if it is indeed a possibility that we are the literal offspring of God who are each destined for a “second” and final birth into our ultimate and eternal form (the same form as God, as is suggested in certain religious doctrines)...

...then what I am promoting is a “virgin birth myth” that transcends all others, wherein God is the ultimate “unsullied** virgin” and mother of us all.

**(Unsullied in that there is no need for the use of flowers, candy, sweet talk and strong drink, followed with a quick and messy session of “devirginization” in order to facilitate our final and transcendent destiny.)
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Why not! We're free to imagine anything we like but in this universe we first strive to discover what nature imagined and actually created. While much of that can seem miraculous it doesn't perform miracles as we usually apply the word....though you may disagree with that.

Yes, I do disagree with that.

I disagree because I refuse to acquiesce to the idea that the manifestation of a unique individualization of personal consciousness (such as yours or mine) is simply a mundane feature of the universe to be taken for granted when it is indeed a “miracle” in and of itself:

The Dictionary wrote:mir•a•clenoun1. a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

Are you talking about a reality that (according to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics) seems to be composed of nothing more than nebulous fields of energy and information that yield-forth three-dimensional phenomena via its interaction with consciousness?

Again (and based on some of our prior conversations), just as you so jadedly take for granted and brush aside the miraculous manifestation of your own personal consciousness, likewise, you also appear to take for granted the fidelity (firmness/certainty) of reality itself...

...a reality that, upon deeper inspection, seems to be “dream-like” in its makeup (as in not as real as our arbitrary definition of the word “real” deems it to be).

I could never accept that conclusion as a zero probability since we don't know what nature can produce by way of consciousness or to what degree.

If you admit that we do not know what nature can produce by way of consciousness and, especially, to what degree...

...then you simply have no business presuming that nature** could not produce a self-aware, incorporeal mind that is capable of creating a universe out of the living mental fabric of its own personal being...

...(which is precisely what certain spiritual concepts of God imply).

**Keep in mind that “nature”...

(or whatever the driving impetus is that sits at the foundation of “ultimate reality” itself)

...could have been functioning (churning out consciousness) so far back into the infinite past that it would make the mere 13.8 billion years of this universe seem like a blink of an eye in comparison.

Which means that it (nature/consciousness/life/mind) has had plenty of time (literally forever, in fact) to evolve into universe creating levels of being.

Now of course you don't have to believe such a thing, but can you at least be open to the possibility?
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It was offered up to Nick_A as a plausible response to his accusation that there is no one here capable of providing an explanation for a process that begins with an immaculate conception and then concludes with a virgin birth.

However, because it does not resonate with his own personal take on reality (even though it makes perfect sense from a “Berkeleyanish” point of view), it just isn’t intellectually satisfying to him.

Therefore, it can only be concluded that no matter what anyone says to him, he will still insist that no one here is capable of providing a logical explanation for the issue he brought up.
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And thank you too.

Well I think both you and I know full well that this cannot be seen by the mind which attempts to intellectualise it.

It can only be seen when the mind disappears...but then there is the unavoidable paradox of writing about what one has seen..because as soon as we do that...it veils what is seen.

The heart will see this, not the mind.

The mind is only interested in ...yeah but, yeah but, yeah but, yeah but.....on and on and on and on....it goes until it realises that taking centre stage position is an obstacle to true understanding...and that only when there is a collapsing of any position taken ...is when everything becomes crystal clear...but first the mind needs to get out of it's own way.

It seems that Nick cannot contemplate the nature of myth as a poetic allegory about humans living in the world.

Speaking of myth, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting my usual fare into the thread (especially in my conversation with Dubious).

However, the fact of the matter is, my usual fare contains the ultimate representation of an “immaculate conception,” for I am speaking of a Being (God) who is capable of immaculately conceiving her own offspring (us) within herself via her own mental processes.

Now I know that this isn't anything that you personally subscribe to, however, if it is indeed a possibility that we are the literal offspring of God who are each destined for a “second” and final birth into our ultimate and eternal form (the same form as God, as is suggested in certain religious doctrines)...

...then what I am promoting is a “virgin birth myth” that transcends all others, wherein God is the ultimate “unsullied** virgin” and mother of us all.

**(Unsullied in that there is no need for the use of flowers, candy, sweet talk and strong drink, followed with a quick and messy session of “devirginization” in order to facilitate our final and transcendent destiny.)
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If I understand you, and whatever you yourself name your "usual fare" , this is pantheism. Me, I am a pantheist.
The objection to pantheism is that reason is enthroned where I imagine that you place goodness and benevolence, so you are not quite a solid pantheist.
However if you place goodness and benevolence where I place reason you have the problem of evil. How do you get round the problem of evil?

However what I mean to explain is that myths of all sorts, including the influential Virgin Birth myths, function as explanations where common sense and even science must fail.

The virgin birth could be considered a miracle. Can there be a logical explanation for a miracle? If there is, there is also a logical explanation for the virgin birth secularism and its reliance on duality cannot measure.

You may be unable to think other than literally, Nick. However, if you read the Doc just above your own post you may get what I am on about.

I disagree because I refuse to acquiesce to the idea that the manifestation of a unique individualization of personal consciousness (such as yours or mine) is simply a mundane feature of the universe to be taken for granted when it is indeed a “miracle” in and of itself:

I agree, it's a ''miracle''

Commonly a miracle is something extraordinary for man and woman. The wonder of life reveals how easily the limits of the mind are taken for real, because extraordinary means that it is not expected by the conditioned logic and reason of the mind. A miracle is not the extraordinary alone but also the ordinary, that which the ego takes for granted. That nature is a miracle in every speck of the universe, be it a plant, an animal or a human being, a planet or the sun, leaves us astonished, if we look deeply into the miracle of life.

If I understand you, and whatever you yourself name your "usual fare" , this is pantheism. Me, I am a pantheist.
The objection to pantheism is that reason is enthroned where I imagine that you place goodness and benevolence, so you are not quite a solid pantheist.

There is no such thing as a ''pantheist'' anywhere living in the universe. This is an artificially constructed concept upon and within Empty Consciousness. It has no reality whatsoever in and of itself.
The ''sense of separation'' is created right there in that idea...the idea there is a ''pantheist''

However if you place goodness and benevolence where I place reason you have the problem of evil. How do you get round the problem of evil?

Evil can only arise in the sense of ''separate self'' ... there is no evil in reality whatsoever in and of itself. This too is a mental construct. Undo the sense of ''separate self'' and all evil will melt away like a salamander in the sun.

The mind does this to itself, if it can create something, it can un-create something.

The problem of evil is easily solved...stop creating it in the first place.

No person is ever evil...it's all the conscious mind of opposites. Beyond the play of opposites is the Immutable SELF that can never be destroyed.

The Light can put out the darkness... but the darkness can never put out the
Light, it can obscure the Light temporally but never extinguish it entirely.

You can put Light into the dark, but you cannot put dark into the Light...because there is only LIGHT..and darkness is an appearance of that LIGHT.

Trying to fight evil with the sense there is a ''someone'' to fight it...is like trying to wash away blood with blood.